


Shear

by Not2be



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Relationship, Disability, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Touch-Starved, Trauma, body issues, mentioned speech disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 11:33:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17182178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not2be/pseuds/Not2be
Summary: "His own body had become a crime scene. A collection of damages. If only he could shed this one and move on to another. He had never quite felt comfortable in his own skin literally or figuratively..."





	Shear

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired in part by what Raul Esparza has said in interviews about Chilton’s body language and how he carries himself. Raul has talked about how the costumes made him uncomfortable, but that discomfort was perfect for Chilton. I also wanted to explore a little how he might feel about his physical trauma. And the idea that little Chilton had some type of speech disorder would not leave me alone.  
> This was originally going to be part of my other Frederick/Will story, but I thought it might be better as its own thing. Anyway, thanks for reading

Some mornings he’d wake up and for a moment he wouldn’t remember. Then he would. The deep aches, some of them psychosomatic Frederick suspected, some not. He’d groan and delay opening his eyes as long as he could. _Useless fucking body_. Other mornings forgetting was not possible. Frederick would wake with a start, black Calvin Klein t-shirt clinging to his body and hair matted to his forehead. His hands would instinctively shoot to his stomach, desperate to hold his guts inside his body. He could feel hot blood running through his fingers, too much too quickly. Then it was gone, nothing on his palms but sweat. It would take a second to reorient himself, running his finger down the knotted scar on his stomach, or his cheek. His arm fell back against the mattress with a soft ‘thunk’ as he got his breathing under control. Even if his mind would let him forget what had happened, his injuries would not. His own body had become a crime scene. A collection of damages. If only he could shed this one and move on to another. He had never quite felt comfortable in his own skin literally or figuratively even before the attacks.

Of course, he had always taken pride in his presentation. The way he dressed and adorned himself, but that was all gift wrap and performance; status and taste and trying to fit in. But just sitting in his body was a difficulty. And now not only did his body make him feel out of place it felt haunted.   

His physical impairment was now more fodder for his collogues disdain and amusement. As if his scars were a cosmic badge of his comeuppance, like a scarlet ‘A’ but branded into his skin. Some of them thought he deserved it. They reveled in what they saw as equilibrium in the universe. An eye for an eye indeed. It was almost poetic. Almost.

A more sensible and adaptive part of himself thought he should be grateful for and focus on his resilience. It was incredible he hadn’t been killed by either of his injuries. But then again was getting stuck by lightening twice and surviving good or bad luck? The semantics of whether a cup was half empty, or half full seemed irrelevant if one were drowning.

When he looked in the mirror at his glazed eye and drooping face and red scar, he did not feel resilient. When his cane was knocked from his grasp and he stumbled he did not feel _resilient_. It made him feel constantly weak and vulnerable. He felt like a wounded deer, prey limping through the snow. The more he survived the more exposed he became. It felt like living inside a broken-down getaway car.

The makeup, the denture, the contact, the suits, the demeanor, the acclaim, might be a social buffer but in this world, a lamb in wolf’s clothing still gets lead to the slaughter. 

 He knew it was irrational, but Frederick resented his body. The constant need of it and its restrictions; it was degrading. One more way to make him pathetic. Sometimes he refused to eat or sleep out of spite, he knew it was not logical, but in his stubbornness and petulance he didn’t care.

Frederick remembered waking up alone and chained to a hospital bed, the beeping of the heart monitor had sent him into a panic, the nurses holding him down to sedate him didn’t help much either. He didn’t remember how much time had passed with no one really talking to him or looking him the eyes before the hand cuff was removed and he was informed of his known innocence. He was numb despite the news.

The worse part of his tedious recovery was not the surgeries, the hazy confusion, the excruciating pain, the forced sedentariness, or even the loss of his left eye. It was learning to speak again with the partial prosthetic.

The burn of humiliation and frustration, trying to work against the lump in his throat and closing his eyes against the tears that only furthered his humiliation and anger. Frederick had a stutter when he was a child that he had worked very hard to rectify. It brought all the same feelings back to the surface. If the speech therapist found his highly emotional state unusual, he never commented on it directly. One time he had put a hand on Frederick’s shoulder in what presumably was supposed to be a comforting gesture. Frederick wanted to crawl out of his skin. It made him feel small. And how dare this stranger, this nobody, touch him out of _pity_. This Aaron or Eric or some such drivel. The first time someone had tried to connect with him, touch him, for nonmedical purposes in months and he would have preferred to be struck across the face than receive feigned sympathy by hospital staff. It added to his further degradation and claustrophobia. All he wanted was to leave the unnatural lighting and burning sanitary smell, until he had returned home, and realized he wanted to be anywhere else.    

“Frederick.” The psychiatrist startled at Will’s voice but then made a small humming noise in acknowledgement.

“Bad dream?”

“No, it was quite lovely I was frolicking though a field of daisies.”

“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to see that you’re using humor as a defense mechanism, Frederick.”

“Thank you for that insightful analysis. Should you not be sleeping right now?” Frederick looked at the clock blearily. It was far too early to be conscious.

“That’s what I was trying to do before your dream about _flowers_ and _frolicking_ apparently woke us both up.”

There was a silence, and when Will propped himself up on his elbows to get a better look at Frederick, the other man sat up on the bed facing away, legs hanging over the edge. Frederick felt uncomfortable with Will seeing his face in the mornings, he still slept in his shirt despite them sleeping together for months now. Frederick was not exactly sure what him and Will were, what they were doing, but he knew it couldn’t end well. That had seemed to be a theme in his life now. Stumbling through the dark and as soon as he was sure of his footing, smug, he would round the corner to find a new horror waiting for him.

What did he care? He was alive right. He still had his job at the BSHCI. His reputation had taken a further beating, but he could probably still get some papers published in a reputable journal, maybe even a book out of all of this. And that’s what he wanted, right. His stomach churned.

He went to retreat into the bathroom to sort himself out and begin his daily patchwork when a hand caught his wrist. He twisted around startled, the sudden movement causing a sharp twinge in his stomach.

Intense blue eyes were making surprisingly steady eye contact with him.

“Stay.” Well this was new. Will normally did not argue with them going their separate ways the morning after. In fact, Frederick figured that the younger man seemed almost completely unsentimental towards him. It was undignified, but Frederick was desperate, to be held, to not be alone, to touch and be touched without the intent to harm or at the very least visibly scar. Frederick knew that part of the reality of this arrangement would be that he would care far more about Will Graham than Will would care for him, and if he wanted this to continue, he’d just have to accept it. It would simply be pragmatic. There were moments they spent together where he could almost pretend that they were more than just a convenient arrangement born from trauma and grief. Imagine that they were friendly, maybe even fond. That Frederick Chilton was someone worth talking to and listening to not just for the purposes of networking, but because it mattered. But perhaps the illusion was more painful than just accepting the reality, just like the mornings he would forget everything, forget that his life was divided into before and after, for just a moment. It made the remembering more painful.   

A conflicting shame ran through him but in the end, Frederick acquiesced with a displeased grunt that made Will smirk. It almost looked…affectionate? Frederick chastised himself for letting his desires color his interpretation of reality. Ignoring truths just because they were unpleasant came at a cost.

Will pulled the other man closer on the bed and started to kiss him, slow and deep and deliberate and…much too tender. Chilton’s stomach swooped, and he felt a traitorous longing bloom in his chest.

Frederick started to shake slightly and hated himself for it. Another betrayal of his nervous system.

“Please stop.” Frederick did not make a habit of saying please. He was also not in the habit of denying permission when it came to their physical relationship. Will stilled above him.

“I’m making you uncomfortable.” It wasn’t a question, so Frederick did not respond.

“Why?” Frederick opened and closed his mouth a few times despite the soreness in his jaw. He could feel it radiating up his temples; he was for sure going to have a headache later. It turns out headaches are not uncommon after being shot in the face.

“Do not- do not do something you do not mean. It is condescending, and I do have some dignity left Will.”

Will slowly ran his hand under Frederick’s shirt up his stomach and over his broad chest. Frederick shivered under his fingertips.

“Relax.” He started pressing kisses first on the bit of his collar bone that was peeking out from his shirt then where his shoulder met his neck. A trail of unhurried deliberate kisses. Normally when they were physical with one another it was not this. It was carnal, desperate, pornographic. Fueled by need and nothing else. Frederick did not make many requests aside from the lights remaining off.   

Frederick took a sharp inhale as Will’s lips met the underside of his chin.

“You doubt my sincerity?” Sucking gently and grazing his teeth along his jaw and the point behind his ear.

“Will.” Frederick exhaled shakily. Will’s mouth found and lingered on the scar on his cheek, the doctor slammed his eyes closed, body tense.

“What lie does this imply?” The profiler ran his hand comfortingly through Frederick’s hair. In any other situation the other man could be quite fussy about his hair, but this Frederick liked it, leaning into the touch despite his nerves. 

“Come on Frederick, you’ve never had a problem with talking before.” He joked not unkindly.

“Your tenderness.” His eyes were still closed. It was if he were back in confession, but it felt more like a transgression than an absolution. 

“I can’t be tender without lying?”

“Not with me.”

“And why is that.” When he got no response, he insisted “Why is that, Frederick?”

“Because. Because you dislike me...or are indifferent towards me. Because I am a transaction a tool. Because…how could you possibly be.” Frederick suspected the three qualities Will Graham cared about most in him was his availability, willingness, and pulse. Though, Will could find those qualities in another anywhere. Oh, and the fact that Frederick almost never said no to a request, he was happy to fulfill any appetite Will was trying to satisfy. Though it was mostly a mutually beneficial experience, Frederick suspected it must be at least a little frustrating for Will, not being able to fill the Hannibal shaped hole carved out and left behind by the killer. Frederick was only a poor imitation of the real thing.

Will looked at him in shock, he was not expecting the man beside him to be that honest with him or the way his voice wavered at the end.

Will considered him thoughtfully for a moment paying attention to little details he had not really given much mind to before. The dark circles under his eyes, the shadows and angles of his face that had not been there previously. When did this happen? Surely, he would have noticed Frederick slowly deteriorating. Maybe he did not want to see it. Normally Frederick would love the attention, but he now squirmed under Will’s contemplative gaze.

“You’ve lost weight.” Again, blunt.

“Yes well, after dining with a cannibal it is not unreasonable for one to lose one’s appetite.”

Will nodded in thought and ran the rough pad of his thumb over Frederick’s cheek.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Occasionally.” _Often_. “But a bullet through the face will do that.” He smirked. Will continued to stare and Frederick adverted his eyes shyly.

“You’re beautiful.” Will kissed him tenderly on the lips with a gentle passion.

Frederick whimpered in a way that could have been a sound of pleasure or pain. After a beat Frederick pushed him away and scrambled off the bed. Frantic and angry like when he was in Will’s living room trying to escape the massacre that took place in his house and the subsequent hunting that he knew would follow.

“Do not! Don’t you dare.” He was trying for livid but the moisture in his eyes was telling.

“You do not get to mock me in my own home, William.”

Frederick turned around facing away. It was childish, but he didn’t know what else to do. He heard the bed creak after awhile and figured Will was getting up to leave. He waited listening for the sound of the bedroom door opening and shutting but it never came. Frederick turned back to see Will approaching him slowly like he might a frightened animal.

“You’re beautiful.”

Frederick sucked in a sharp breath. “Will.”

“You’re beautiful.” He repeated over and over punctuating each declaration with a small chaste kiss. Frederick closed his eyes feeling his cheeks becoming wet as he lost the battle against his emotions.

“ _you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful_ ”

“ _Will_ ” He insisted more desperately now, opening his eyes.

“What is it Frederick, tell me what you need.” He couldn’t. Desperate green eyes looked back at Will, begging. He didn’t have to say it. _Please don’t hurt me_.   _Not like this._

Will grabbed Frederick and held him tightly as he sobbed, whispering little affirmations in his ear, all things Frederick could never bring himself to ask for but wanted desperately. Will could drop him at any moment and let him shatter, Frederick knew this. But he let himself be held anyway.

Standing in the middle of his room in Will Graham’s arms, Frederick felt as if his body may not always be such a terrible thing to live in.  


End file.
